Australia is in the midst of yet more voting madness and we are counting the days until the outcome of the “most important federal election in a generation” is declared, after the polls begin closing on the east coast at 6pm on September 7.

We will watch the endless patter as the results unfold on the television on election night and I think, at our house, we just might instigate a somewhat irresponsible drinking game.

Every time an announcer or interviewer says that a losing candidate, or a disappointed party leader, is about to/expected to concede defeat, we could raise our glasses and make a toast to tortured terminology.

Going by past performances, we could end up rather over-served – to borrow a friend’s saying – because concede defeat is a phrase regularly used, even by our nation’s top political broadcasters.

If only they remembered the word concede means to acknowledge defeat and that, by saying concede defeat, they have created a tautology.

Cheers.

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UPDATE: Both the outgoing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the new one, Tony Abbott, uttered these words in election night speeches and at least one reporter from our national broadcaster tweeted them too. And now some of our online news services have lapsed. Sigh. The only saving grace was the BBC. Bless them.

Tweet on election night from ABC reporter.

The error even crept into ABC’s home page.

The Brisbane Times home page slider had the error.

It didn’t take long to find the error on the news.com.au website either.

Even The Guardian’s email newsletter plug couldn’t avoid the error.

BBC website reports concession correctly on its home page

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